Sudan’s Economic Crisis Leads to Severe Shortages of Life-Saving medicines in Sudan

03:19 PM December, 13 2018

Sudanese Online
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The pharmaceutical companies and the General Commission for Medical Supplies in Sudan, announced the total absence of 34 types of life-saving medicines in Sudan, following the stop of a large number of pharmaceutical companies working in the fields of importing and manufacturing drugs, due to the lack of hard currency needed for importing drugs or inputs of its industry. This took place after the failure of reaching an agreement between the government and pharmaceutical companies to set a reasonable exchange rate for of US dollar for the importation of medicine and inputs of the pharmaceutical industry in Sudan.

The Sudanese Prime Minister, Mutaz Mousa, announced earlier this year the liberalization of the US dollar exchange rate, and float the Sudanese currency by creating what is known as “the mechanism of market makers” to determine the US dollar exchange rate on a daily basis based on supply and demand factors . This resulted in cumulative inflation to more than 150%, a significant rise in the prices of basic necessities, and to severe shortage in bread, fuel and medicine. In November 2018 alone, inflation rose from 68.44% in October to 68.93%. While the exchange rate of the US dollar in the parallel market exceeded the seventy pounds, the official rate announced by the government is only 45 Sudanese pounds.

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